The new healthcare law will slow economic growth over the next decade, costing the nation about 2.3 million jobs and contributing to a $1 trillion increase in projected deficits, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report released Tuesday.

That's a misleading, if not outright false, description of that the CBO report says. In fact, the CBO stated that the decrease comes on the supply side, not the demand side, because Obamacare subsidies mean that some workers will choose not to work a job they normally would have just to keep health insurance:

The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses' demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked relative to what would have occurred otherwise rather than as an increase in unemployment (that is, more workers seeking but not finding jobs) or underemployment (such as part-time workers who would prefer to work more hours per week).

Further, while the CBO did increase projected deficits by $1 trillion over the next decade, it did not specifically single out Obamacare as a reason. To the contrary: the CBO is still projecting the Affordable Care Act will reduce the deficit.

One again invokinghisprivilege as a black conservative to say things that would get him branded as a racist otherwise, Mychal Massie devotes his Feb. 3 WorldNetDaily column to attacking black History Month:

Feb. 1 began the 28 day “ceremony to injustice” that is nothing more than an aversion to modernity that encourages people to mire themselves in the past juxtaposed to embracing the present and the future. That is the essence of Black History Month. Black History Month is used by the nefarious and the corrupt to divide, to evoke blame and guilt, and often for personal gain.

Public school children will be immersed in a 28-day vat of a factually flawed and at times fictional history of how bad the blacks had it in America, and they will hear that whites are privileged and their ancestors had slaves, blah-blah-blah.

The one thing you won’t hear during Black History Month is what blacks are able to get away with today, which, if taken in context, shows the tolerance of America that they won’t be talking about in classrooms during Black History Month.

You also won't hear Massie bragging about how he can get away with saying certain things because he is a black conservative -- i.e., denouncing Black History Month. He continues:

They won’t be talking about the fact that blacks aren’t shot on sight in areas where “Knockout” is taking place. For those unfamiliar, the Knockout game is what black thugs play where they suddenly and unexpectedly punch unsuspecting white persons in the face for sport.

And no Massie rant would be complete without a fit of Obama derangement:

And while I’m on that subject, Obama not only was elected and then re-elected, but he was elected and re-elected with people fully aware that he is a pathological liar whose goal is to “fundamentally transform America” into a socialist state. The blatant violations of the Constitution and congressional authority would have led to the impeachment of any other president heretofore. Bill Clinton was impeached for less, and President Nixon was forced to resign his presidency for demonstrably less than what Obama is guilty of thus far in office.

I see that the MRC has demanded apologies from MSNBC for allegedly insulting and offending conservatives. Yet the MRC routinely routinely insults people -- for example, Brent Bozell calling President Obama a "skinny ghetto crackhead."

The most recent example is Matt Philbin, managing editor of the MRC's Culture & Media Institute. He has a history of saying sexually charged and misogynistic things about Sandra Fluke, and with Fluke's recent announcement that she will run for Congress, Philbin has unleashed his misogyny once again. IN a series of tweets, he has forward so-called Fluke campaign slogans such as "A Diaphram [sic] in every ...," "When that call comes at 3:am, She really will be awake," "Pillow Talk Express!" and "It's Moaning in America." He followed those up with a tweet saying, "You should see her on the stump! And on the chair, and in the hay loft, and back behind the dumpsters and ..."

Does the MRC consider such offensive comments to be acceptable behavior for its employees? If so, doesn't that undercut your demand for apologies from MSNBC?

Despite Philbin being on record saying offensive things in the past, he has remained an MRC employee, which suggests that such misogynistic behavior is, in fact, tolerated if not encouraged at the MRC. I would like to know if that is still the MRC's policy.

We've detailed how WorldNetDaily cares only about Miriam Carey, the woman who was shot and killed outside the Capitol after fleeing from police last October, because it's one more thing an increasingly desperate Joseph Farah can try to use as a cudgel against President Obama.

WND is taking this skirmish to a bizarre extent by touting how an enemy of the United States agrees with them on the alleged violation of Carey's rights. Garth Kant writes in a Feb. 2 WND article:

While most Americans still would not recognize the name Miriam Carey, the unarmed black mother gunned down by police in the streets of the nation’s capital after apparently making a wrong turn near the White House, the case is getting international attention.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has cited the incident, now the subject of a $75 million lawsuit by Carey’s family, as an example of human-rights abuses taking place in the United States.

The report by the Basij paramilitary organization says the United States is “one of the main violators of human rights” in the world, something with which many Americans would not agree.

However, the Iranian media are doing something the Western media are not: Calling attention to a potentially serious human-rights violation, right on the doorstep of the U.S. Capitol.

This is followed by an absurdly long rehashing of events and citing of fringe figures that agree with WND that Carey's rights were violated.

But WND -- and by extension, those that agree with them, like John Whitehead and Nat Hentoff -- have discredited themselves by touting how Iran agrees with this latest attempt to create a new Vince Foster. Logic dictates that we should oppose whatever an enemy of the United States says, but it seems WND hates Obama more than it loves America.

Back in 2012, Media Research Center managing editor Matt Philbin endorsed Rush Limbaugh's tirade of misogyny against Sandra Fluke by joining in the insults, calling her a "'horizontal laborer," a "'Lincoln Tunnel Hitcher" and a "of dubious reputation" who wants to " sleep around w/impunity."

Now that Fluke has announced a run for Congress, it's time for Philbin's misogyny to resurface.

Philbin has used his Twitter account to create and repeat sleazy insults of Fluke under the hashtag #FlukeCampaignSlogan, including "A Diaphram [sic] in every ...," "When that call comes at 3:am, She really will be awake," "Pillow Talk Express!" and "It's Moaning in America."

Another Philbin tweet adds: "You should see her on the stump! And on the chair, and in the hay loft, and back behind the dumpsters and ..."

The MRC demands that MSNBC apologize for offending the sensibilities of conservatives, yet it employs as a high-level employee someone like Philbin with such open hatred of women? Talk about a double standard.

Until the MRC deals with Philbin's misogyny, it has no moral standing to criticize anyone else's offensive remarks.

There is another German family, the Romeikes, that came to America for religious asylum. In their native country, they, too, ran afoul of the government for trying to protect their children from some of the anti-Christian influences in the German public schools – the same kind of influences often found in American public schools for that matter.

Who knows better than the parents what is in the children’s best interest? Hasn’t God given the parents the responsibility of their children, even if they delegate that teaching to others? Is it not still in the place of the parents, “in loco parentis”?

The Obama administration seems bent on helping illegal immigrants, but they’re actively working to oust the Romeike family (which has abided by all the immigration laws) from the U.S., as this case winds itself through the courts.

In fact, as we've pointed out, the Romeikes also rejected private and religious schools in Germany, claming that they were "just as bad or even worse" than public schools. The Romeikes could have also chosen to work toward creating a school in Germany that more closely aligns with their claimed "Christian faith," but they apparently chose not to.

Newcombe adds:

Who made homeschooling illegal in Germany? “Der Fuhrer” in 1938. But the law is still on the books and is still being enforced.

In fact, William Shirer, author of “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” points out, “The German schools, from first grade through the universities, were quickly Nazified.”

Hitler declared on Nov. 6, 1933: “When an opponent declares, ‘I will not come over to your side.’ I calmly say, ‘Your child belongs to us already. … What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.’”

Hitler later declared, on May 1, 1937: “This new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.”

In fact, compulory schooling has been a tradition in Germany for a good 200 years.

Newcombe then tries a laughable CYA addendum:

Please note: I am not saying that those who oppose homeschooling, including the judge in Germany or officials here in America, are Nazis or akin to Hitler. But we need to see the statist context in which this anti-homeschooling law was passed in the first place.

Newcombe is being disingenuous. If he wasn't trying to at least implicitly liken any critic of homeschooling to Nazis, there would be no need to bring up that erroneous claim. Why else would he and his WND colleagues do it so much?

MRC, Home Of Man Who Called Obama A 'Skinny Ghetto Crackhead,' Thinks MSNBC Should Apologize For Offending ConservativesTopic: Media Research Center

So the Media Research Center's Rich Noyes devoted an entire "Media Reality Check" to things MSNBC should be apologizing for, in addition to last week's tweet about a Super Bowl ad. Noyes declared that "The Media Research Center has compiled a long list of instances in which the network’s anchors have committed character assassination disguised as journalism, unjustly smearing conservatives, Republicans and the Tea Party as racists."

Tim Graham attacking ABC's Martha Raddatz as a "woman who won't take husband's surname" and suggesting that Raddatz will "have a hard time deciding which debate questions to ask" while moderating a presidential debate because she has "marrie[d] three times."

Noyes should take his employer's own never-apologized-for offenses into consideration before attacking others.

Meanwhile ...Topic: WorldNetDaily
Richard Bartholomew details how WorldNetDaily is putting a bargain-basement price of Carl Gallups' WND-published book promoting the dubious idea that a rabbi once predicted that the death of Ariel Sharon would be somehow mystically linked to the return of Jesus.

Dr. Don Easterbrook – a climate scientist and glacier expert from Washington State who correctly predicted back in 2000 that the Earth was entering a cooling phase – says to expect colder temperatures for at least the next two decades.

Easterbrook’s predictions were “right on the money” seven years before Al Gore and the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for warning that the Earth was facing catastrophic warming caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide, which Gore called a “planetary emergency.”

“When we check their projections against what actually happened in that time interval, they’re not even close. They’re off by a full degree in one decade, which is huge. That’s more than the entire amount of warming we’ve had in the past century. So their models have failed just miserably, nowhere near close. And maybe it’s luck, who knows, but mine have been right on the button,” Easterbrook told CNSNews.com.

“For the next 20 years, I predict global cooling of about 3/10ths of a degree Fahrenheit, as opposed to the one-degree warming predicted by the IPCC,” said Easterbrook, professor emeritus of geology at Western Washington University and author of 150 scientific journal articles and 10 books, including “Evidence Based Climate Science,” which was published in 2011.

There's lots that Hollingsworth has gotten wrong here, starting with her declaration that Easterbrook is right about global cooling.

The red line is an IPCC prediction, which brings us to another thing Hollingsworth got wrong: uncritically repeating Easterbrook's claim that the IPCC predicted "one-degree warming." As Skeptical Science points out, the IPCC served up numerous analyses of temperature predictions, and Easterbrook cherry-picked one:

He chose a figure which represented model simulations of temperature responses only to greenhouse gas changes, which neglects for example the temperature response to the cooling effects of aerosols.

He chose a single model run with an anomalous temperature spike in 2011.

He only presented the data from 2000 to 2011, which concealed the fact that the temperature spike in 2011 was a short-term anomaly.

He exaggerated his distorted IPCC temperature rise by a factor of two.

Thus Easterbrook's claim that the IPCC TAR projected a 1°C global surface warming from 2000 to 2010 was not even remotely accurate.

Asperusual, Hollingsworth couldn't be bothered to seek out any alternative views. Indeed, Hollingsworth even shared one fawning question she asked Easterbrook: “How does it feel to have been right?”

It's not a feeling Hollingsworth is apparently familiar with. But fortunately for her, her higher-ups at CNS don't appear to be judging her journalism on its accuracy, only on how faithfully she advances her employer's right-wing agenda.

WND Ignores Evidence That Stockman Is Lying About Being LibeledTopic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's Garth Kant is clearly Steve Stockman's favorite reporter. He knows Kant won't write anything negative about him, so he plies Kant with scoops, like his run for Senate.

So, Kant uses a Jan. 31 WND article to promote Stockman's filing of a libel lawsuit against a PAC supporting his Republican opponent, incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, that was "provided exclusively to WND." It reads like a Stockman press release, and Kant doesn't bother to obtain any response from the Cornyn camp. He writes:

According to Stockman, the Cornyn PAC operating under the name “Texans for a Conservative Majority” claims Stockman had been “jailed more than once,” was “charged with a felony” and “violated federal ethics laws.”

Stockman says all of those are false statements.

“The Cornyn supporters have committed libel per se against me, falsely and maliciously accusing me of a felony. Of course, I have never been charged with or committed any such act, and these anonymous Cornyn supporters know it,” said Stockman.

He added, “As a sitting member of the United States Congress, I find it unconscionable that another member’s supporters would make such reckless, malicious and false allegations.”

Since Kant is in stenographer mode, he won't tell you that the basic facts of those allegations are actually true.

A 1996 Texas Monthly profile of Stockman points out that "Stockman spent more than one weekend in jail for traffic violations, and once, after a girlfriend hid Valium in his underwear before he was incarcerated, he was charged with possession of a controlled substance, a felony that was later dropped." The Cornyn PAC's depiction may be devoid of context, but Stockman did, in fact, spend time in jail and was charged with a felony.

The claim that Stockman "violated federal ethics laws" is a logical conclusion, but it's not inaccurate. The Houston Chronicle reported that Stockman "has failed repeatedly to disclose business affiliations that stretch from Texas to the British Virgin Islands on his Congressional financial disclosure forms" and "Stockman, since his bankruptcy in 2002, created a number of businesses, some of which remain active but were not reported on Stockman’s financial disclosure form as required by federal law."

Kant doesn't supply a copy of Stockman's libel suit, nor does he detail Stockman's evidence that the claims are false -- he merely regurgitates Stockman's assertions that they are. But that's the kind of thing that happens when you're the PR flack for a politician: He won't tell you that the politician is lying.

D'Souza's Crime Not A 'Big Deal' To MRC's BozellTopic: Media Research Center

Brent Bozell used to care about the rule of law. For instance, in 1999 he praised "the House managers' principled advocacy of the rule of law" in the impeachment vote on President Clinton. In 2009, he asserted that "The Obama Administration acted in complete disregard of the rule of law" in the auto bailout.

But when it comes to crimes committed by conservatives, well, the rule of law doesn't matter so much. He is quoted opining on the arrest of Dinesh D'Souza for campaign finance violations in a Jan. 31 WorldNetDaily article:

“Let’s assume Dinesh D’Souza is guilty, and I mean 100 percent guilty. What is he guilty of? Circumventing FEC dictates by directing [$15,000] to a Senate candidate of his choice. Big deal,” Bozell told WND.

“First, in a multi-million Senate campaign, this is a fraction of a fraction. It ‘buys’ a can of soda pop, and that’s about it.["]

That's right -- because a conservative broke the law, it's no big deal to Bozell.

Bozell goes on to equivocate D'Souza's offense with much worse ones allegedly committed by Presidents Clinton and Obama:

["]Second, and more importantly, compare this ‘crime’ with Bill Clinton, who raised millions of dollars from questionable at best, and illegal at worst sources, including felons and Chinese Communist generals. Compare it to Barack Obama, who raised millions upon millions from who-knows-who-or-where to this day. Nothing ever came of their fundraising abuses, abuses one thousandfold larger than anything attributed to D’Souza. And yet he was arrested and forced to post a $500,000 bond.

“It is astonishing. Given all the other abuses of power swirling around this administration, so many of them finding their origins in the ‘Justice’ Department, do I see deliberate persecution against conservatives? I am not conspiratorial by nature, but I will say unequivocally, you better believe it.”

The fact that Bozell must equivocate away D'Souza's crime is a sign that he will not criticize another conservative for committing offense. Rush Limbaugh already knows about that right-wing benefit.

An unbylined Jan. 25 WorldNetDaily article does its best to portray the shooting death of a black man by a white policeman in North Carolina as "the next Trayvon." But that would be the WND-Jack Cashill version of the Trayvon Martin case, in which the black male was a total thug and deserved to be shot.

The article cheers that a grand jury did not indict the officer, Randall Kerrick, on a charge of voluntary manslaughter, calling the case "politically pressured" and the manslaughter charge "overcharged." But a few days later, Kerrick was charged, prompting WND to sneerin a Jan. 27 article "If at first you fail to indict, try, try again,' claiming the indictment came after "civil-rights activists loudly marched outside the Charlotte courthouse."

In both articles, WND frames the incident to make the victim, Jonathan Ferrell, as deserving to be shot because he "refused to obey orders to stop and show his hands after police responded to a robbery call." WND also asserts that "witnesses" claimed that Ferrell was "drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana in the hours before he crashed his car" in the incident that led to his shooting. WND offers no source for the information, but it's Undermined -- and simultaneously gets a warrantless racial spin -- when WND adds that "The police chief, who is African-American, still has not released the results of the toxicology report."

WND also quotes "black radio" -- again, no source is provided for this information, or what exactly "black radio" means -- calling a woman who called police on Ferrell after she allegedly though he was trying to break into her house, a "racist b—-" guilty of a "hate crime."

But WND curiously ignores the fact that an investigation of the shooting by the police department Kerrick works for found the shooting to be "excessive":

"The evidence revealed that Mr. Ferrell did advance on Officer Kerrick and the investigation showed that the subsequent shooting of Mr. Ferrell was excessive," police said in a statement on September 14, the day of the shooting. "Our investigation has shown that Officer Kerrick did not have a lawful right to discharge his weapon during this encounter."

That would seem to be an important finding of fact that WND somehow found not to be newsworthy. But that's just another reason nobody believes WND.

CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey spends his Jan. 29 column having a sad that electricity consumption in America is declining:

Americans may look back in a few decades and see that 2007 was the year that production of electricity peaked in the United States and our nation began powering down.

This may make many on the environmentalist left — including President Barack Obama's top science and technology adviser — very happy.

But it will not make life better for you, your children or your grandchildren.

According to data published by the Energy Information Administration, the United States generated a total of approximately 4,157 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2007. We had never produced that much before. We have never produced that much since.

In 2012, the last full year for which there is data, the United States produced 4,048 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity — down 2.6 percent from 2007.

In the first nine months of 2013, the United States produced 3,078 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity — down from the 3,096 the United States produced in first nine months of 2012.

Strangely, Jeffrey doesn't mention the main reason for the decline: increased efficiency. The Associated Press reports:

Because of more energy-efficient housing, appliances and gadgets, power usage is on track to decline in 2013 for the third year in a row, to its lowest point since 2001, even though our lives are more electrified.

[...]

Big appliances such as refrigerators and air conditioners have gotten more efficient thanks to federal energy standards that get stricter every few years as technology evolves.

A typical room air conditioner — one of the biggest power hogs in the home — uses 20 per cent less electricity per hour of full operation than it did in 2001, according to the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers.

Central air conditioners, refrigerators, dishwashers, water heaters, washing machines and dryers also have gotten more efficient.

Other devices are using less juice, too. Some 40-inch LED televisions bought today use 80 per cent less power than the cathode ray tube televisions of the past. Some use just $8 worth of electricity over a year when used five hours a day — less than a 60-watt incandescent bulb would use.

Those incandescent light bulbs are being replaced with compact fluorescent bulbs and LEDs that use 70 to 80 per cent less power. According to the Energy Department, widespread use of LED bulbs could save output equivalent to that of 44 large power plants by 2027.

The move to mobile also is helping. Desktop computers with big CRT monitors are being replaced with laptops, tablet computers and smart phones, and these mobile devices are specifically designed to sip power to prolong battery life.

It costs $1.36 to power an iPad for a year, compared with $28.21 for a desktop computer, according to the Electric Power Research Institute.

Instead of telling his readers the facts, Jeffrey indulges in a favorite CNS obsession: John Holdren. Somehow this is all his fault:

As President Obama moves forward with his plans for America's future energy production and economic well-being, Americans should remember that Obama's science and technology adviser declared 19 years ago that "a world of zero net physical growth" was something that "needs to be faced up to eventually."

Yeah, efficient use of electricity has absolutely nothing to do with it.